Presentation at 9th International Conference on Networked Learning, NL2014, Edinburgh, April by Peter Goodyear, Lucila Carvalho & Nina Bonderup Dohn

1. Design for networked learning: framing relations
between participants’ activities
and the physical setting
Peter Goodyear, Lucila Carvalho,
Centre for Research on Computer Supported Learning and Cognition (CoCo)
University of Sydney, lucila.carvalho@sydney.edu.au, peter.goodyear@sydney.edu.au
Nina Bonderup Dohn
Institute of Design and Communication, University of Southern Denmark,
nina@sdu.dk

2. Context & Credits
Learning, technology and design: architectures for
productive networked learning
Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship
Peter Goodyear, David Ashe, Lucila Carvalho,
Martin Parisio, Paul Parker, Roberto Martinez-
Maldonado, Ana Pinto, Kate Thompson, Dewa
Wardak, Pippa Yeoman
Nina Bonderup Dohn, Yannis Dimitriadis,
Peter Sloep, Begoña Gros – visiting scholars

3. Context & Credits
Learning, technology and design: architectures for
productive networked learning
Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship
Extracting reusable design ideas
(eg analysing learning networks)
Supporting design processes
(eg empirical studies of designers)

4. Networked learning & learning networks
• NL as learning with/through others; (much) interaction
through (digital) communications media
• Learning network as a stable instance of NL (stable enough to
warrant/allow analysis)
• Personal LNs are a subclass of LNs: but not our focus
• Not just the people but also the tools & other artefacts,
practices, tasks-activities, roles, divisions of labour etc:
heterogeneous
• Designed and emergent: alive

5. The physical: artefacts, tools, places etc
Physical: material and digital and hybrids
The materialist turn isn’t yet very good at the digital, or even at
materials per se
Artefacts, tasks, users & practices co-evolve
Analysis needs to be able to deal with single artefacts and
complex assemblages (ecologies of things; meshworks etc)

6. Analytical Framework
(Emergent) ActivityTasks
Artifacts, tools, texts, etc
Dyads, groups, teams; roles; divisions of labor
Physically Situated
Socially Situated
Outcomes
(Goodyear & Carvalho, 2014, p. 59)

7. Analytical Framework
(Emergent) ActivityTasks
Artifacts, tools, texts, etc
Dyads, groups, teams; roles; divisions of labor
Physically Situated
Socially Situated
Outcomes
(Goodyear & Carvalho, 2014, p. 59)
Goal-directed
action (intentions
formed in the mind
precede and direct
selection of tools,
actions etc)
Embodied cognition,
extended mind,
intermingling of
mind-body-world
(tool-using action
brings forth intention)

8. Analytical Framework
Metaphors for learning
Learning to participate involves understanding the properties of tools (etc);
incorporating them into your activities (instrumental genesis);
using them to create new tools

9. NL comes naturally
“Human-machine symbiosis, I believe, is
simply what comes naturally. It lies on a direct
continuum with clothes, cooking (‘external,
artificial digestion’), bricklaying and writing. The
capacity to creatively distribute labour across
biology and the designed environment is the
very signature of our species, and it implies no
real loss of control on our part. For who we are
is in large part a function of the webs of
surrounding structure in which the conscious
mind exercises at best a kind of gentle, indirect
control. ”
(Andy Clark, 2003, p174, emphasis added)

10. #1: Affordance, scaffolds and cognitive load
Affordance – what the environment offers the animal
Directly perceived; not dependent on mental processing
“the terms ‘afford’ and ‘affordance’ are lazy terms … these terms merely paper over
deep cracks in our understanding … of why, given the extraordinary interpretive
capabilities of humans, anything affords any one interpretation better than any
other … something hidden and mysterious is going on whenever the terms ‘afford’
and ‘affordance’ make their appearance”
Harry Collins (2010, 36) Tacit and explicit knowledge.
Crafting of
affordances
Design for interpretive
work
Primary, ‘fast’, system 1 X
Secondary, ‘slow’, system 2 X

11. #2: Affordance as relational
Case: Leading Curriculum Change (Ch6)
Title Title Title Title
Title Title Title Title
Title Title Title Title
Home page for module selection

12. #3 Materiality of boundary objects
Case: Leading Curriculum Change (Ch6)
H
T
Online course/project site
(professional learning site)
School site
(workplace/application site)

13. #4 Scale: the LN as city not classroom
Ana Pinto, AlphaPlus
Imagining design for learning
at the scale of
a museum, gallery, campus
rather than
a virtual classroom or course
module or collaboration tool or
single screen
Insights from geography, urban
studies, environmental psychology

14. Key points
Learning networks as objects of inquiry; analysis for design: looking for
reusable design ideas; architectural arrangements not standalone pieces
Activity-centric analysis: distinguishing between designable and emergent
elements (activity as emergent & key; design as indirect)
Connecting constructs: what constructs can be used to provide the design
logic linking physical entities to activity? Affordance? Plus what?
Consider the way we are framing both learning activity and the physical ‘stuff’
Take-away: most of what we care about in NL involves entanglements of
brains, bodies & things and we can’t understand this very well if we ignore
the peculiar qualities of things and of people:
materials (not just materiality & abstraction)
brain science, grounded cognition (not just minds & introspection)

15. Further reading: connecting physical setting to human activity
Overdijk, M., Diggelen, W., Kirschner, P. & Baker, M. (2012) Connecting agents and artifacts in CSCL:
Towards a rationale of mutual shaping. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative
Learning, 7, 193-210.
Affordances
Structuration
Instrumental genesis
Lonchamp, J. (2012) An instrumental perspective on CSCL systems. International Journal of
Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 7, 211-237.
Ritella, G. & Hakkarainen, K. (2012) Instrumental genesis in technology-mediated learning: From
double stimulation to expansive knowledge practices. International Journal of Computer-
Supported Collaborative Learning, 7, 239-258.
special issue of iJCSCL

16. Further reading: connecting physical setting to human activity
Malafouris, L. & Renfrew, C. (Eds.) (2010) The cognitive life of things: Recasting the boundaries of
the mind, Cambridge, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge.
Malafouris, L. (2013) How things shape the mind: A theory of material engagement, Cambridge,
MA, MIT Press.
Ingold, T. (2011) Being alive: Essays on movement, knowledge and description, Abingdon,
Routledge.
Clark, A. (2008) Supersizing the mind: Embodiment, action, and cognitive extension, Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
Clark, A. (2003) Natural-born cyborgs: Minds, technologies, and the future of human intelligence,
Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Sterelny, K. (2012) The evolved apprentice: How evolution made humans unique, Cambridge MA,
MIT Press.
Sterelny, K. (2003) Thought in a hostile world: The evolution of human cognition, Oxford, Blackwell.
Kirsh, D. (2013) Embodied cognition and the magical future of interaction design. ACM Trans.
Comput.-Hum. Interact. 20, 1-30.

17. Thanks & Contacts
Peter Goodyear, Lucila Carvalho,
Centre for Research on Computer Supported Learning and Cognition (CoCo)
University of Sydney, Australia
peter.goodyear@sydney.edu.au lucila.carvalho@sydney.edu.au
Nina Bonderup Dohn
Institute of Design and Communication, University of Southern Denmark,
nina@sdu.dk
Next book: Place-based spaces for networked learning
If interested, talk to Lucila or Peter